To respond to your first query about why the procedural irregularities are not disputed: we had confidentially spoken to several independent sources at the firm with knowledge of these processes and have received plenty of evidence that the procedural allegations in the letter hold water and are not really in question.
Plus, the letter itself is so specific about the procedure, with respect to timestamps of emails, receipt of emails, etc, that it would be very very easy to disprove (and discredit) those allegations.
Regarding your second point that the letter was a "last ditch attempt at swaying public opinion and pressurising firm management" - sure, this could theoretically be true, though it's equally if not more likely that different motivations were at play. From the tone of the letter, she had already very firmly decided to leave the firm at that point, and it wouldn't be a reasonable interpretation that she would have expected the firm to beg her to stay, ignore the (independent) POSH finding and punish the alleged offender.
Much more reasonable is that she would have seen this letter as a warning to management that there is a problem at the firm, while whoever leaked the letter could have equally seen this as something akin to whistleblowing.
Even otherwise, is it not reasonable for any employee who is essentially claiming constructive dismissal, to also have their say about why they left and that it's not just about pique about the POSH process having gone against them?
Actually, as far as I understand, no - the POSH committee basically recommended sensitisation-type stuff but no sanction was taken, so I don't think it was a 'guilty' finding (other than confirming that the act has happened, but finding that there was no SH intent behind it).
Not to say they weren't, but the fact that the firm finally has a strong enough pipeline of senior female lawyers who haven't left the firm before partnership, is a promising sign that the gender ratio will improve in future years.
Despite your disclaimer, I assume some of these are intended to be taken as jokes. In case you're genuinely asking for guidance though:
1. Do your clients know you're speaking to them while standing at urinal? :) More seriously though, I don't think anyone would allege sexual harassment if someone's fly was accidentally and innocently open if we're not talking obscenity levels, nor would any POSH committee make a finding of SH purely on the incidents you describe.
2. I don't think anyone would have a problem with that, unless you're going to make your apology a really creepy and awkward one.
3. If you were literally staring at someone for minutes, this one could be a tough one and could perhaps be misinterpreted in some cases. Again, if it becomes an issue, explaining yourself in a non-creepy way should help (unless there are other factors or the person you were staring at is also the same person that 1 to 8 happened with).
4. I would definitely counsel against touching a colleague's arm, even if they are sad. Touching someone on the arm is for many a pretty intimate gesture that could easily be misinterpreted unless you are close enough friends to ensure it won't be misinterpreted and is in fact welcome. A there-there pat on the back might be better in some circumstances, but even that is arguably unnecessary. Just listening to their problem and being understanding might be a better bet all-round, without leading to potential misunderstandings about your intentions.
5. If you have to adjust yourself in the office rather than taking a bathroom break, try to look around you first to see if you're being observed. If you are (or if there's only a single female colleague around whom you do not share close friendship with), then maybe suck it up and deal with the discomfort for a while. Ask yourself, how would male (and female) colleagues react if a woman started overtly adjusting her tight pants in the office? (perhaps it's less likely a POSH complaint would be filed, but it probably won't help her career).
6 & 7. If you're sly about it, no problem. If you're rubbing your chest suggestively while making eye contact with a woman, it's probably a different story. Again, how would you feel about a woman putting her hand down her shirt and scratching around her bra in the office with a pencil? Appropriate?
8. No one will allege SH if a vest is visible through a shirt, unless you're also leering at someone and doing 1-7 above at the same time. If you're an A2, you can probably afford considering a new wardrobe, if your old clothes aren't fitting well anymore. This will help with generally professional demeanour as well as your comfort levels.
I'm saying there is little served by third parties publicly dissecting the event in question in the comments. Sadly, this is neither the first time something like this has happened at a law firm, nor will it be the last. But what law firms can do is to ensure that complainants feel they have at least been given a fair hearing.
If complainants don't feel that, there is every likelihood of incidents of SH increasing, rather than decreasing.
I think there's not really much point for third parties speculating in the comments about the facts of the case, whichever side you stand on. The real story is that an associate left after she was unhappy with the process being followed at the firm.
It's funny, whenever there's a sexual harassment story (on LI or the wider internets) it tends to bring a swathe of men out of the woodwork who feel they've been hard done by their entire lives because they're not women and live in constant fear of being (wrongly) accused of sexual harassment. Sometimes this is just misogyny, sometimes it manifests in wilful misreading of what has been reported. There's not much I can do about that.
But, I also believe there are many who may mean well but genuinely not understand the issues, coupled with a lack of available information and discourse, so I feel it can be valuable to provide some perspective and explanations.
Actually, as far as I'm aware, anyone who creates a free LI account can edit their comments... (also, the edit was not an edit of the original comment, more of an addendum so as not to spam up the comments section)
Well, yes, the Atlantic is a pretty well respected source, which links to an academic paper on this and is supported by years of management theory and practice. :)
Yes, that's exactly what I was saying. It's not a given, but it creates a real risk. Two seconds of Googling could have found you this:
Quote:
They weren’t wrong. Amazon seems to be typical of the sort of organization that researchers have found to be particularly prone to sexual harassment and abuse: male dominated, super hierarchical, and forgiving when it comes to bad behavior.
To start with, having more women employees, particularly in leadership roles, can reduce the incidence of harassment. Why? It’s not that women are somehow themselves preventing the behavior—in fact women too can be perpetrators—but that male-dominated organizations are more likely to have cultures characterized by aggressive and competitive behaviors and so-called locker-room culture. In addition, compared with women, men tend to have more trouble recognizing when women are being treated in an unfair or sexist way. This sets the stage for harassment: In such contexts, norms of professionalism can give way to boorish interactions in which women are treated as sexualized pawns rather than as valued and competent work colleagues. And if men are less likely to label what their male colleagues are doing as inappropriate, it can make matters worse.
I can't really share details from the letter, but ignoring everything else, as mentioned in the article, an admission from the complainant that an incident like it happened but was not intentional, is prima facie a strong case, since POSH does generally not require intent.
I see you have cleverly chopped up two different parts of my quote and united them out of context. Very good lawyering :) Or perhaps you genuinely misunderstood, so allow me to explain: the culture comment was explicitly referring to "large organisations" (not to Khaitan specifically).
That said, if you want to speak about Khaitan specifically, there is often no smoke without some fire so let me share some facts. Only 9% of Khaitan's partnership are women, at the moment. That's half of Trilegal (where it's 18%, with Luthra and JSA a little higher) and CAM-SAM-AZB are all above 35%. That strongly suggests a (probably unintentional and legacy) culture at the firm that is dominated by men, and many management, HR or POSH experts will tell you that unless an organisation takes explicit steps to change such a male-dominated culture, it can have knock-on effects on sexual harassment, female attrition and similar issues.
From having talked to Khaitan sources - although it's hard for third parties to know exactly what happened - it appears that some things likely did go wrong in the procedure. All the procedural claims in the letter are also backed up with exact time-stamps of emails, meetings, etc, which would be very easy to disprove if they were not bona fide).
We had also reached out to Khaitan asking in detail about those alleged lapses, and the firm has issued its statement (though without denying or confirming that any lapses took place, but that may also largely be because the firm might be in a bit of Catch 22 situation regarding POSH confidentiality provisions).
Not sure where you can impute bias there, but please do share which bit you think does. Quoting from the article:
Quote:
It found - in-part based on an admission to the committee by the alleged perpetrator - that the conduct complained of had in fact happened. However, bearing in mind the complainant’s statement, it held that he had not intended to sexually harass her, basically chalking it up to the accused adjusting his shirt and trousers. The complainant disagreed in her letter, noting that “the law does not require establishing intent as a requirement of determining sexual harassment”.
While such cases can be notoriously hard to adjudicate, of particular concern to the firm in the letter having gone viral would be that her complaints of “lapses in the procedure of the POSH committee as per the firm’s policy” appear serious and hard to dismiss.
I don't think anyone is disputing the parts of the content of the letter that have been excerpted here - care to share what you think is 'post truth'? :)
No one is ever likely to know the full story unfortunately. In a nutshell, the complainant had a strong case, and the accused had a defence that it was not intentional. What more does one need to know about the facts of the case?
We have primarily reported on the procedural deficiencies alleged and the firm has given a statement that it has POSH procedures in place. It could be that the firm is taking steps to improve procedures after this incident or it could be that this was an isolated incident where the process didn't work, because partners were extraordinarily busy or distracted - it's hard to say or provide a fuller story than that...
Edit: Also, this is not a trial by media: the 'trial', as it were, was the POSH complaint; no one is named in this story; and everyone who's read the letter already wouldn't really be swayed or influenced by this story.
I believe Khaitan may not legally actually be able to issue a full statement on this specific case, due to the confidentiality provisions in POSH proceedings...
The question is not so much whether you should believe whether harassment took place or not. The main question should be whether it's ok to conduct the procedure giving such limited notice, without sharing documents properly with the complainant, etc (and I don't think that's being disputed).
As pointed out in the article, the letter is 12 pages long and it goes into a lot of details of the alleged act.
However, that's not really the crux of this article, which is about the alleged procedural irregularities, which in some ways are a more serious issue than instances of POSH, which sadly happen at all large organisations. But the main thing a law firm and its partners can do is to ensure that the internal POSH procedures are followed properly so that those making complaints at least feel there had been a fair hearing, even if they do not get the result they might expect.
The point is not so much the complaint itself - as pointed out in the article, these things are notoriously difficult to prove one way or another. However, the main issue from our perspective really are the alleged irregularities in the POSH procedure, which no one has disputed.
These things are rarely intentional at large organisations and largely, POSH committees are independent of management and not answerable to management. The problem, however, is that these things can get influenced by culture or other concerns, resulting in procedures that may not be robust enough.
Thanks for writing in and sharing. Rest assured, I'm also a cynical douche most of the time but I found the comment very sad, and I know they are not the first person to feel that way. Of course depression is not super easy to 'fix', but the easiest thing we can probably all do in the profession is to begin talking about it more openly so it can be treated properly and help can be given where required.
Really sorry to hear that. I can promise you that things can get better, even if it doesn't seem that way right now. You might not be aware that depression in the profession (or even outside, if you're not a lawyer) is probably more common than you think. There's also far less stigma attached these days to seeking professional help or counselling, which can really help and can guide you to making positive life changes. And sometimes it's worth considering whether it's your environment that's making you depressed - changing jobs or careers can help sometimes...
Maybe, but that also automatically forces everyone from less privileged backgrounds (who can afford to front Rs 10 lakhs five years ahead of their job offer), to choose corporate jobs, rather than litigation, right?
Thanks for pointing out, we regret the error. We had missed that it was a DH story from September 2018. Have updated the article to reflect and issued a correction.
Actually, that's not entirely fair - we'd asked for comment about three leavers at once, so he gave a collective comment for all three, which we've adapted for two stories now, the third to follow soon :)
Agree, it's a great idea. We're definitely open to publishing other NLUs' primers if students want to prepare them, just send us an email at contact@legallyindia.com
We had just updated the story with it 10 minutes ago, actually. :) We weren't aware of her alma mater, since not everyone keeps a full profile on Linked-in but have now confirmed.
I think it's a slightly different position - from what I can piece together from sources, the legal team structure at NF seems very flat and most report directly to LA in their various verticals...
Thanks for writing in and your offer, I and other readers would love to hear a little more about the place.
"Unreasonably well" would be referring to the fact that in preferences it already outranks HNLU, which has a track record since 2003 (!) as well as RMLNLU. HNLU (and also RMLNLU) have lots of grads who are already successful in industry and working in the courts, some at quite senior levels. HNLU is not perfect, but MNLU is a completely unproven entity right now, based largely on location, and hopes and dreams, it seems, at least from the outside. It only started its first batches in 2015, which we had covered at the time: https://www.legallyindia.com/lawschools/nlu-mumbai-to-begin-classes-this-year-after-own-entrance-test-20150220-5628
What little we've heard, have been some reviews from students over the last two years ago that things were quite oversold and the reality at MNLU Mumbai did not match up to expectations.
For years it was operating on a shared campus from TISS and apparently, according to its website, more recently from "CETTM (Centre for Excellence in Telecom Training and Management) located in Hiranandani Gardens, Powai, Mumbai. This is one of the biggest telecom training centres in Asia".
The previous VC BB Panda (whom we had tried to contact half a dozen times over the last few years to update on progress at MNLU), had quietly left earlier this year ago, apparently replaced by Prof. Dr. Dilip Ukey.
Anyway, would love to hear of your experience.
Any reviews of the VCs' performance? Has MNLU Mumbai finally got its own proper campus now? Does it need one or is this CETTM arrangement fine? How are hostels? Batch sizes are still quite small, right? How many students are currently there? And how many faculty are there (the website still lists BB Panda as faculty, so I'm not sure how up-to-date it is).
Has a recruitment cell been started yet? Is the university supportive? Are recruiters? How much does the university support mooting activities? Have students won any moots yet? Debates? Have the students organised many events yet? And has the university provided funds for such events?
Any other thoughts on why (besides location), a law aspirant should/would pick MNLU Mumbai over HNLU, RMLNLU, NLUO or many of the other older NLUs, or even GLC (which, despite all its problems, has more reliable recruitments and industry contacts than MNLU M at present, presumably)?
Happy to be proven wrong, and happy to engage on this.
It's very hard for us to fact check where the video is from, when it was taken, whether it's really medical students, etc. I think to some extent, it may also be preferable to avoid the LI comments section getting too politicised and vitriolic, since that's already all over social media. So we may err on the side of caution in moderating comments (and particularly videos) that are flagged by other readers as potentially fake.
Subscribe na: starting at only Rs 199 :) I'm sure you spend more on coffee every other day... ;)
Seriously though, we are looking to create more of a sustainable subscriber-funded model where market information can still be freely available for those who need it or can't afford it. Exclusives and timely competitive market intelligence and the like, we will generally endeavour to paywall for a while.
If you can couch your allegations in parliamentary language without stooping to ad hominem, maybe they'll get published.
I think I get it: your basic point is that you disagree the way that Arjun ran the SJA and the way Bhat was ousted without a back up plan. Plus some people are sore about him having, in retrospect hastily, having welcomed Talukdar as new VC (though in light of the sh*tstorm that had preceded it, it's perhaps understandable why the SJA would hold out a tentative olive branch to the new admin). At the end of the day, law school student politics is a messy business and it's impossible to make everyone happy.
And our general policy about more aggressive moderation when it comes to students or young lawyers at the beginning of their careers, rather than in a position of authority, still stands. However, if you have criticism, please try to put this across in a constructive way, rather than making it sound personal.
Well, having some deals coverage to actually point to certainly helps in presenting a more balanced view of corporate exits and what's happening at the firm, as does a comment from management...
We actually put very little on Facebook these days. It does drive a little bit of traffic, but to be honest not sure it's worth the hassle or the Zuckerbergian-bargain most of the time. In this case, considering the release arrived late on Sunday evening, there was simply no time to share it. But I'll do so now, since you asked so nicely :) But you have to promise to click 'superlike' and share on it, mmkay?
It seems very relevant to point out that from his CV he has considerable teaching and administrative qualifications in running / setting up law schools, which should be useful. Of course no one will know how his tenure will pan out, but on paper at least he seems like a promising candidate.
Plus, the letter itself is so specific about the procedure, with respect to timestamps of emails, receipt of emails, etc, that it would be very very easy to disprove (and discredit) those allegations.
Regarding your second point that the letter was a "last ditch attempt at swaying public opinion and pressurising firm management" - sure, this could theoretically be true, though it's equally if not more likely that different motivations were at play. From the tone of the letter, she had already very firmly decided to leave the firm at that point, and it wouldn't be a reasonable interpretation that she would have expected the firm to beg her to stay, ignore the (independent) POSH finding and punish the alleged offender.
Much more reasonable is that she would have seen this letter as a warning to management that there is a problem at the firm, while whoever leaked the letter could have equally seen this as something akin to whistleblowing.
Even otherwise, is it not reasonable for any employee who is essentially claiming constructive dismissal, to also have their say about why they left and that it's not just about pique about the POSH process having gone against them?
1. Do your clients know you're speaking to them while standing at urinal? :) More seriously though, I don't think anyone would allege sexual harassment if someone's fly was accidentally and innocently open if we're not talking obscenity levels, nor would any POSH committee make a finding of SH purely on the incidents you describe.
2. I don't think anyone would have a problem with that, unless you're going to make your apology a really creepy and awkward one.
3. If you were literally staring at someone for minutes, this one could be a tough one and could perhaps be misinterpreted in some cases. Again, if it becomes an issue, explaining yourself in a non-creepy way should help (unless there are other factors or the person you were staring at is also the same person that 1 to 8 happened with).
4. I would definitely counsel against touching a colleague's arm, even if they are sad. Touching someone on the arm is for many a pretty intimate gesture that could easily be misinterpreted unless you are close enough friends to ensure it won't be misinterpreted and is in fact welcome. A there-there pat on the back might be better in some circumstances, but even that is arguably unnecessary. Just listening to their problem and being understanding might be a better bet all-round, without leading to potential misunderstandings about your intentions.
5. If you have to adjust yourself in the office rather than taking a bathroom break, try to look around you first to see if you're being observed. If you are (or if there's only a single female colleague around whom you do not share close friendship with), then maybe suck it up and deal with the discomfort for a while. Ask yourself, how would male (and female) colleagues react if a woman started overtly adjusting her tight pants in the office? (perhaps it's less likely a POSH complaint would be filed, but it probably won't help her career).
6 & 7. If you're sly about it, no problem. If you're rubbing your chest suggestively while making eye contact with a woman, it's probably a different story. Again, how would you feel about a woman putting her hand down her shirt and scratching around her bra in the office with a pencil? Appropriate?
8. No one will allege SH if a vest is visible through a shirt, unless you're also leering at someone and doing 1-7 above at the same time. If you're an A2, you can probably afford considering a new wardrobe, if your old clothes aren't fitting well anymore. This will help with generally professional demeanour as well as your comfort levels.
Hope this helps :)
If complainants don't feel that, there is every likelihood of incidents of SH increasing, rather than decreasing.
But, I also believe there are many who may mean well but genuinely not understand the issues, coupled with a lack of available information and discourse, so I feel it can be valuable to provide some perspective and explanations.
Quote: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/11/organizations-sexual-harassment/546707/
That said, if you want to speak about Khaitan specifically, there is often no smoke without some fire so let me share some facts. Only 9% of Khaitan's partnership are women, at the moment. That's half of Trilegal (where it's 18%, with Luthra and JSA a little higher) and CAM-SAM-AZB are all above 35%. That strongly suggests a (probably unintentional and legacy) culture at the firm that is dominated by men, and many management, HR or POSH experts will tell you that unless an organisation takes explicit steps to change such a male-dominated culture, it can have knock-on effects on sexual harassment, female attrition and similar issues.
To be fair, however, this is not a problem unique to KCo and the firm has been working hard at addressing it - the recent partnership promotion round was more than 50% women, which is a really promising step. https://www.legallyindia.com/lawfirms/khaitan-promotes-11-to-partnership-and-more-than-50-are-women-20190405-9981
Also, on that note, we recently completed a fuller analysis of gender ratios which will be published in our upcoming issue very shortly.
We had also reached out to Khaitan asking in detail about those alleged lapses, and the firm has issued its statement (though without denying or confirming that any lapses took place, but that may also largely be because the firm might be in a bit of Catch 22 situation regarding POSH confidentiality provisions).
Quote:
We have primarily reported on the procedural deficiencies alleged and the firm has given a statement that it has POSH procedures in place. It could be that the firm is taking steps to improve procedures after this incident or it could be that this was an isolated incident where the process didn't work, because partners were extraordinarily busy or distracted - it's hard to say or provide a fuller story than that...
Edit: Also, this is not a trial by media: the 'trial', as it were, was the POSH complaint; no one is named in this story; and everyone who's read the letter already wouldn't really be swayed or influenced by this story.
However, that's not really the crux of this article, which is about the alleged procedural irregularities, which in some ways are a more serious issue than instances of POSH, which sadly happen at all large organisations. But the main thing a law firm and its partners can do is to ensure that the internal POSH procedures are followed properly so that those making complaints at least feel there had been a fair hearing, even if they do not get the result they might expect.
These things are rarely intentional at large organisations and largely, POSH committees are independent of management and not answerable to management. The problem, however, is that these things can get influenced by culture or other concerns, resulting in procedures that may not be robust enough.
Best regards,
Kian
"Unreasonably well" would be referring to the fact that in preferences it already outranks HNLU, which has a track record since 2003 (!) as well as RMLNLU. HNLU (and also RMLNLU) have lots of grads who are already successful in industry and working in the courts, some at quite senior levels. HNLU is not perfect, but MNLU is a completely unproven entity right now, based largely on location, and hopes and dreams, it seems, at least from the outside. It only started its first batches in 2015, which we had covered at the time: https://www.legallyindia.com/lawschools/nlu-mumbai-to-begin-classes-this-year-after-own-entrance-test-20150220-5628
What little we've heard, have been some reviews from students over the last two years ago that things were quite oversold and the reality at MNLU Mumbai did not match up to expectations.
For years it was operating on a shared campus from TISS and apparently, according to its website, more recently from "CETTM (Centre for Excellence in Telecom Training and Management) located in Hiranandani Gardens, Powai, Mumbai. This is one of the biggest telecom training centres in Asia".
The previous VC BB Panda (whom we had tried to contact half a dozen times over the last few years to update on progress at MNLU), had quietly left earlier this year ago, apparently replaced by Prof. Dr. Dilip Ukey.
Anyway, would love to hear of your experience.
Any reviews of the VCs' performance? Has MNLU Mumbai finally got its own proper campus now? Does it need one or is this CETTM arrangement fine? How are hostels? Batch sizes are still quite small, right? How many students are currently there? And how many faculty are there (the website still lists BB Panda as faculty, so I'm not sure how up-to-date it is).
Has a recruitment cell been started yet? Is the university supportive? Are recruiters? How much does the university support mooting activities? Have students won any moots yet? Debates? Have the students organised many events yet? And has the university provided funds for such events?
Any other thoughts on why (besides location), a law aspirant should/would pick MNLU Mumbai over HNLU, RMLNLU, NLUO or many of the other older NLUs, or even GLC (which, despite all its problems, has more reliable recruitments and industry contacts than MNLU M at present, presumably)?
Happy to be proven wrong, and happy to engage on this.
Seriously though, we are looking to create more of a sustainable subscriber-funded model where market information can still be freely available for those who need it or can't afford it. Exclusives and timely competitive market intelligence and the like, we will generally endeavour to paywall for a while.
I think I get it: your basic point is that you disagree the way that Arjun ran the SJA and the way Bhat was ousted without a back up plan. Plus some people are sore about him having, in retrospect hastily, having welcomed Talukdar as new VC (though in light of the sh*tstorm that had preceded it, it's perhaps understandable why the SJA would hold out a tentative olive branch to the new admin). At the end of the day, law school student politics is a messy business and it's impossible to make everyone happy.
And our general policy about more aggressive moderation when it comes to students or young lawyers at the beginning of their careers, rather than in a position of authority, still stands. However, if you have criticism, please try to put this across in a constructive way, rather than making it sound personal.
In this case, considering the release arrived late on Sunday evening, there was simply no time to share it. But I'll do so now, since you asked so nicely :) But you have to promise to click 'superlike' and share on it, mmkay?